Toontrack Indie Folk EZX Expansion Reviews

I've been really pleased with the whole EZ Drums thing, and have bought a few expansions, hoping to hear something like Jim Keltner, recorded with 3 - 4 mics, a la Glyn Johns. The Toontrack Indie Folk EZX Expansion is the closest thing yet. Great sounds!

So good! Great value!

This is a great-sounding expansion pack. The kits have a unique, vibey, sound that can fit into a variety of musical styles. The inclusion of the 4-mic sample set is a cool addition.

Like the other reviewer, I too own a very healthy amount of drum libraries, my favorite of the self-contained bunch being BFD2 and its El Dorado expansion, but with that comes a hefty price on system resources and hard drive space. So I often find myself calling up my EZXs to fill in temporarily. Indie Folk PERFECTLY satiates all my needs for classic rock and soul derived drum sounds without all the labor on my poor Macbook Air, bless its heart its trucking along pretty well actually.

Indie Folk is highly versatile. If you understand drum recording techniques of the last 60 years, you'll be able to nail just about any sound imaginable in this one EZX...from mono room-only mic sounds of the 50s to mid 60s, to 4-mic Glyn Johns type sounds of the late 60s/early 70s, to tight disco-like sounds. It'll even do classic metal (I was able to get a Ride The Lightning era Lars Ulrich thing going without much fuss at all). Im finding this particular Toontrack product to be quite limitless and I've quite settled on it being the drum VI of choice for my EP that I'm finishing up. Hands down, best EZX. Vintage Rock would tie if it weren't for that ugly room sound it has. Yeesh.

I'm not trying to brag but I have a lot of drum libraries. I mainly have been using Toontrack (Music City & Roots), Slate's SSD4.0/Trigger with the Platinum Samples and Chris Lord Alge (heavenly cymbals), and every once in a while the NI Kontact kits hit the spot (Abbey Road 70's is great). Those are just the ones I use. I own a hell of a lot more that I never use. But I wont name names because its all preference in the end.
So when I first heard this kit I was intrigued enough to add it to the collection. Well I'm blown away. This is right in my wheel house. Its not your every day kit, but when you need something big, warm, dry and need to be able to fool your audience on realism... well this one takes the cake. Its a shame they did it as an EZX in my opinion. I would love to see a larger library with a few more options. The hats at first I didn't like but I've figured out how to tame them. Would be nice to have a 2nd or 3rd option but again its an EZX, not an SDX. And this has since become my go to for snares. The Gretsch Roundbadge and 1950s Ludwig are just perfect. Fat, dry, snappy, no bad resonances at all. And its one of the best libraries I've heard for doing authentic sounding rolls and ghost notes. The toms are great, you can bring them up in a mix without them over powering everything else. First time I've been able to do that from a library without even tweaking them.
Bottom line is this kits is cheaper than most on the market. And while it is some what of a niche kit, to tell you the truth every kit is a niche kit. There is no one kit that works on every song in every genre. But this is one of the most masterfully recorded kits I've heard from Toontrack for a long time. Worth every penny, do not think twice about it.

And to Toontrack: Next time do an SDX!!! It sounds far too good to be an EZX.

This is a solid investment for anyone who writes indie folk songs or collaborates with someone who does. I am currently drumming for a folk project which has a definite Fleet Foxes influence and they love the sound of these drums. Actually, this software could probably work in all kinds of styles; I am also involved with a post rock unit (sounds a bit like Russian Circles) and some of the drums in this software (the Gretsch and Slingerland Bomber in particular) also sound really good in that setting. The ONLY thing that keeps me from giving this software 5 stars is the complete absence of folk percussion sounds (washboard, spoons, etc).

Overall, another satisfying purchase from Sweetwater and great customer service yet again from my sales rep AJ Becerra.

Way better than the EZ Drummer samples and midi. The midi library is conveniently organized into songs with various parts for each. The samples are pretty good, though not as good as the Jazz EZX expansions. However, the midi files are overall more useful than the Jazz expansions. If you're going for an indie or folk sound, don't pass this up. A lot of the included midi files have a slightly country sound to them, which I found to be a great addition to my EZX/SDX collection.
Also: Tamborine!

I did buy this kit thinking I would be producing softer styles of music, but the kits also work great in rock and even jazz contexts. The Slingerland kit has a very big and unique sound that can really spark creativity. and the Ludwig set is worth price by itself. I have to say that overall this expansion has probably the most organic sounding kits Toontrack has ever made, as well as having some very nice reverb and ambience settings. If your looking to add a less processed and natural drum sound to your EZdrummer arsenal, I would definitely suggest purchasing this expansion.

Just finishing my library of drums If your Producing different type of music you will need everything that Toontrack has for drums. So this purchase was a no brainer at this price and Randy Akins is my guy at Sweetwater and I give him ******************** for the best customer service.

Ok, actually I AM blown away, but I feel like I need to leave something for the next review. I've purchased a lot of stuff from Toontracks through Sweetwater and I've never been sorry. Sweetwater is awesome and Toontracks sounds amazing. This may actually be my favorite expansion pack yet...

This EZX has a classic similar to the original Ez Drummer. The snares are amazing. There is room ambience which you can mix in or "mono room." There is a 4 mic setup included too.
There are two hi hats. One of them has a tambourine which is triggered when you put your foot down on the hi hat pedal.
Take care with the massive amounts of bass in the floor and bass drum samples. They sound huge.

Easy to learn, got up and running quickly. In DAW, or stand alone.

I love Toontrack products and I have and use their stuff in my productions. Since I an not a drummer, I use EZDrummer 2 to add that element to my stuff. The Indie Folk EZX added some missing parts to the drum kit that work well in my singer songwriting works. Since you can build a "custom" drum kit in EZDrummer, you can add parts of different kits found in the EZX expansions you have to create your ultimate kit. The Indie Folk Expansion sounds great and has lots of options and compliments some of the midi packs that I use.

These drum kits are a bit closer to real, for me - not too perfect to be believed, but a little more garage-y, warm and worn. T shirt on the tom a nice touch :-) I dig the mallet kit. also appreciate the 4-mic versions and have already found good uses for them.

This is a really nice addition to our EZX and SDX kits. I've used it mostly in Superior Drummer so far, but will sometimes open it in EZ Drummer just to revel in the extra-cool drum kit graphic. The sounds are very organic (compared to many of the other EZX / SDX kits) - and really give an authentic - more relaxed - touch to your drum tracks. Perfect for when you don't need an overly big or processed sound.

Thanks to Sweetwater tech support, (AWESOME!!), for help in downloading, it works fine with superior 2. and has some interesting drum parts &I sounds! I can get an outstanding "Salvation Army" marching drum sound!!! Seriusly, as with about all Toontrack virtual plugins, it is great, topped only by the service of all the folks at Sweetwater!!